Bucks man charged with cutting off his father’s head and posting it on YouTube is competent to stand trial, judge rules
Justin Mohn, 32, has a “rational, factual understanding of the proceedings” he faces for allegedly killing his father, Michael, in January, according to Bucks County Court Judge Stephen Corr.
Months after prosecutors say Justin Mohn decapitated his father and posted a video of his severed head on YouTube, he told a psychologist that he was the Messiah, sent by God to save America from “Satanists and communists.”
Mohn, 32, also said the federal government was conspiring to kill him, according to John Markey, a psychologist hired by Mohn’s lawyer to evaluate his mental state after he was charged with murder in connection with his father’s death.
Prosecutors say Mohn shot his father with a 9 mm pistol in the Levittown home they shared and then cut off his head with a kitchen knife. He then took to YouTube to publicize the crime and rail against the federal government in a video that went viral.
On Thursday, at a hearing to determine whether Mohn was competent to stand trial for first-degree murder, Markey said Mohn’s excited rhetoric, filled with religious and political imagery, was a clear sign of a delusional disorder. He said Mohn believed the irrational things he was saying and was incapable of participating in his own defense.
But Bucks County Court Judge Stephen Corr ruled that Mohn was competent to stand trial, and he will face a preliminary hearing Aug. 22.
Corr said Mohn displayed a “rational, factual understanding of the [court] proceedings” and understood the charges against him and their potential penalties. The judge also agreed with prosecutors that Mohn, in filing a handwritten motion seeking to replace his lawyer, Joseph Haag, was willing and able to participate in his defense, just not with Haag.
A psychologist hired by prosecutors to evaluate Mohn said he suffered from depressive and anxiety disorders. But she said that in regular meetings with social workers and psychiatrists at the county jail, he displayed none of the delusional behavior Markey had described.
Kelly Chamberlain, the psychologist hired by the DA’s Office, acknowledged that some of Mohn’s rhetoric was extreme, but said he had an active interest in the defense of his criminal case.
Mohn seemed alert and animated throughout the hours-long hearing Thursday, smiling and greeting his attorney and other courthouse staff. He shook his head and grinned as the two psychologists described the conversations they had with him at the county jail.
Prosecutors contend that he was in a “clear state of mind” when he planned and carried out the murder of his father, Michael, and bought the gun he used to kill him the day before the crime.
Hours before police in Middletown Township were called to the bloody scene, Mohn posted a graphic video to YouTube in which he displayed his father’s severed head, called the retired civil engineer for the Army Corps of Engineers a traitor, and denounced the federal government.
Authorities later tracked Mohn’s cell phone to the National Guard Training Center in Fort Indiantown Gap, more than 100 miles from his home. Mohn hoped to mobilize troops at the base against the government, according to prosecutors.
Investigators found him carrying a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol, the gun used to kill his father, and a USB drive that contained pictures of federal buildings and directions on how to build an improvised explosive device.
While in prison, Mohn wrote letters to Russian diplomats that he intended for President Vladimir Putin, asking for political asylum and apologizing for what he described as an earlier attempt to overthrow the Putin regime, according to testimony Thursday. He sent another letter to Gov. Josh Shapiro, seeking a preemptive pardon if he was convicted of first-degree murder.